Kansas.com: Nation and World

Obama to meet with Israeli PM Netanyahu

STEVEN R. HURST — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:07 CST

WASHINGTON — The White House announced Sunday that President Obama would meet with Benjamin Netanyahu during the Israeli prime minister's trip to Washington to address Jewish groups, ending days of uncertainty.

Netanyahu was to arrive in the U.S. capital Sunday night for a speaking engagement at the three-day 2009 General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America. He will meet with Obama tonight.

U.S.-Israeli relations have been strained since Netanyahu rejected Obama's demand that the Israeli government stop building or expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The Palestinians say Israel has deeply encroached into land the Palestinians claim for a future state.

Health bill may be dead in Senate

RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:07 CST

WASHINGTON — The glow from a health care triumph faded quickly for President Obama on Sunday as Democrats realized the bill they fought so hard to pass in the House has nowhere to go in the Senate.

Obama urged senators to be like runners on a relay team and "take the baton and bring this effort to the finish line on behalf of the American people."

But the government health insurance plan included in the House bill passed late Friday is unacceptable to a few moderate Democrats who hold the balance of power in the Senate.

Gulf Coast has eye on hurricane

BECKY BOHRER — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:07 CST

NEW ORLEANS — Hurricane Ida, the first Atlantic hurricane to target the United States this year, is heading toward the Gulf Coast with 105 mph winds, bringing the threat of flooding and storm surges.

Authorities said Ida could make landfall as early as Tuesday morning, although it was forecast to weaken by then.

A hurricane watch extended over more than 200 miles of coastline across southeastern Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. Louisiana's governor declared a state of emergency.

High court to weigh youths' life terms

MARK SHERMAN — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:07 CST

WASHINGTON — Joe Sullivan was sent away for life for raping an elderly woman and was judged incorrigible, though he was only 13 at the time of the attack.

Terrance Graham, implicated in armed robberies when he was 16 and 17, was given a life sentence by a judge who told him he threw his life away.

They didn't kill anyone, but they effectively were sentenced to die in prison.

Congress to probe shooting

ALLEN G. BREED — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:07 CST

FORT HOOD, Texas — Sen. Joe Lieberman said Sunday he would begin an investigation into whether the Army missed signs that the man accused of opening fire at Fort Hood had embraced an increasingly extremist view of Islamic ideology.

Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, wants Congress to determine whether the shootings constitute a terrorist attack.

His comments came a day after classmates who participated in a program at a military college said they complained to superiors about Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan and what they considered his anti-American views. They included his giving a presentation that justified suicide bombing and telling classmates that Islamic law trumped the U.S. Constitution.

Germany celebrates 20 years of unity

MATT MOORE — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:07 CST

BERLIN — With concerts and memorials today, Germans will celebrate the day the Berlin Wall came crashing down 20 years ago.

On that cold night, they danced atop the wall, arms raised in victory, hands clasped in friendship and giddy hope. Years of separation and anxiety melted into the unbelievable reality of freedom and a future without border guards, secret police, informers and rigid communist control.

Germans are celebrating with concerts boasting Beethoven and Bon Jovi; a memorial service for the 136 people killed trying to cross over from 1961 to 1989; candle lightings and 1,000 towering plastic foam dominoes to be placed along the wall's route and tipped over.

Accused shooter's beliefs worried others

ANGELA K. BROWN and ALLEN G. BREED — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:07 CST

FORT HOOD, Texas — There was the classroom presentation that justified suicide bombings. Comments to colleagues about a climate of persecution faced by Muslims in the military. Conversations with a mosque leader that became incoherent.

Some who knew Nidal Malik Hasan as a student said they saw clear signs the young Army psychiatrist — who authorities say went on a shooting spree at Fort Hood that left 13 dead and 29 others wounded — had no place in the military. After arriving at Fort Hood, he was conflicted about what to tell fellow Muslim soldiers about the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, alarming an Islamic community leader from whom he sought counsel.

"I told him, 'There's something wrong with you,' " Osman Danquah, co-founder of the Islamic Community of Greater Killeen, told the Associated Press on Saturday. "I didn't get the feeling he was talking for himself, but something just didn't seem right."

White House groundskeeper gets dog duties, too

DARLENE SUPERVILLE — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:54 CST

WASHINGTON — Dale Haney is the keeper of the White House grounds. In nearly 40 years of keeping the grass green and the flowers blooming, he's also managed to cultivate something just as important: relationships with the presidents' pooches.

Haney is often spotted walking Bo, the Obama family's Portuguese water dog. In fact, he's tended to every White House pup since King Timahoe, Richard Nixon's Irish setter.

Haney, 57, has been a White House fixture since 1972. After getting a degree in horticulture from Sandhills Community College in Pinehurst, N.C., he continued his training in Washington and basically was discovered for his green thumb, as he tells the story.

Calif. struggles to regulate pot shops

MARCUS WOHLSEN and GREG RISLING — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:07 CST

SEBASTOPOL, Calif. —The medical marijuana dispensary in this California wine country town is in a former auto dealership, and has more registered patients than the town has residents. Los Angeles has more pot shops than Starbucks and almost as many as public schools.

The surge in medical marijuana in California has left many communities scrambling to regulate the free-for-all, while others are trying to ban the drug altogether. The issue took on greater urgency after the Obama administration announced looser federal marijuana guidelines last month.

Some local governments are looking to take an approach similar to Sebastopol, where officials welcome the business as a strong source of tax revenue during the recession.

Study: Babies' cry patterns rooted in native language

Karen Kaplan — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:07 CST

They may not be old enough to talk, but babies less than a week old know how to cry with patterns of their native language.

Researchers have known that infants have the ability to mimic speech starting around 12 weeks of age. They also show a preference for spoken language that mirrors the rhythm, melody and intensity patterns of their mother tongue.

But when they're too young to control their vocal cords or the muscles that shape the mouth to make specific sounds, how can babies demonstrate that they're tuned in to the chatter around them? Through their cries, suggests a team of European scientists.

Panel gets stricter limits on abortion in health bill

ERICA WERNER — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:07 CST

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan coalition sought to impose stricter abortion limits on insurance sold under a new health care bill Saturday, hoping to leave their imprint on legislation otherwise crafted largely by more liberal lawmakers.

Here is how coverage of abortion would work under their proposal, which applies to policies sold in a federally regulated insurance exchange that would be set up in 2013. The bill envisions both private companies and the government offering policies in the exchange.

The amendment, written by Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., would bar the new government insurance plan from covering abortions, except in cases of rape or incest or where the life of the woman is in danger. The Democrats' original legislation would have allowed the government plan to cover abortions.

Hospital bills slain man's family

Bobby Caina Calvan — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:07 CST

SACRAMENTO, Calif. —A letter of sympathy should have arrived at the home of Gerald and Elizabeth Hawkins 10 days after their son Scott was beaten to death.

Instead, University of California Davis Medical Center officials were apologizing last week to the Hawkins family over a clerical error that instead sent them a $29,000 bill and a form letter suggesting their slain son was medically indigent.

Hospital officials continued to scrutinize how the error occurred when the 23-year-old California State University, Sacramento student was brought to the University of California, Davis emergency room Oct. 21 after being beaten by a roommate.